Editor’s Note: This article was published by the twice-weekly newsletter “The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak” on June 23, 2024, and has been re-published by the Kyiv Independent with permission. To subscribe to “The Counteroffensive,” click here. Sofia’s name has been changed due to security concerns.* They call it the gray zone: a two-kilometer stretch of road contested by both Russian and Ukrainian forces but controlled by neither. Thirty-thousand civilians have braved this treacherous path from Russia into Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy Oblast, around 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Kharkiv…